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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: It’s mad, mad, mad... electricity.
Post Subject: The APS PurePower: the basic misunderstandingPosted by Romy the Cat on: 11/27/2007
 Romy the Cat wrote: |
| ... I will showily dump in this thread some observations of mine about APS PurePower regenerator... |
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If you, I, they, we, whoever… consider APS PurePower as just a power treating or regenerating devise then I feel that the whole “kinky” point of this devise might be missed. The problems with electricity are cruel and to address them is very noble task, still PurePower unit it looks like trying to deal with electricity it in a slightly different way than it might be expected. I will be telling about it in my following posts.
We get horrible sound with bad electricity and we are accustomed to blame wrong sinusoid shape, too high harmonics and presence of HF noise in power lines. Then we presume that if we get rid of those 3 factors then we fixed our problems. We do fix sinusoid’s shape, drive harmonics to the sub 0.5% and have no HF noise in power line detectable with most sensitive analyzer… Still, we not necessary have right Sound as a result of our power curing efforts. With that cures electricity we most certainly have better sound from many perspectives but not the sound as it “might be” or “shell be”. In some cases the power treatment/regenerating efforts are not useful and in some cased the treatment/regenerating create more harm than help and none of them is self-sufficiently good and has own NEGATIVE affect to Sound
Take many powers conditioners, power treatment units, active, passive, in-line, parallel, isolation, decoupling…. they all try to make the power better. They all work out from one perceive or another but they have own harmful influence to sound. Some of them have no registerable objective problems – PS Audio Power Plant for instance – outputs a idyllic sinusoid, has ultra low distortion and no noise of any kind. The PP unit does provide literally perfect electricity to playback but… still the result sound of playback driver by PP has numerous problems, and I have heard very many of them. OK, I hear sound compression because the main’s sinusoid is clipped and we all know that it is not good. Should I be happier if PS Audio Power Plant outputs perfect sinusoid and while it does it I still hear sound compression? There is nothing objectively better then the voltage that PP outputs, I measured it many times, I am sure you did it as well. Still, from bottoms to top of the auditable spectra and within each and single level of the Six-Leveled of Listening Benefits ™ the PP devise make my playback to sound wrong. Compression, bass rubberizing, tonal discoloration, brutality of upper region, muddy aura around notes, lack of micro-contrasts, deformation of TTH characteristics, lethargic dynamics, depersonalization of upper mid, that and many other things has became a basic attribute of me – the urban audio listener. I very much do not disgrace PP, I just bring it as an example of a devise that objectively outputs absolutely perfect characteristics but sonically is absolutely worthless. The Power Plants and other AB regenerators, the isolation transformers, the parallel treatments, the power conditioners, the filters, the resonant stabilizers, the Sola transformers and few other that I have tried do not really resolve the problems but they juts shift one set of problem into other set of problems. Some of those devised do work fine one day but other days when the problems in mains have changed they make playback to sound not acceptable again.
Now is the ridicules part of the ploy – the APS PurePower. This regenerator of course does as much as any other regenerator does – grabs AC, convert it to DC, oscillates new AC and then amplifies that this new AC. However, the surprise is that APS PurePower does not do each of l regenerator’s duties very well. The AC that it produces is kind of “strange”, the waveform is fragile, the stability is low the harmonics might higher then they might be. This regenerator is VERY fastidious with load and has not necessary predictable impact to a given audio component. So, what is the point? The point is to ask myself if I am looking for better electricity in order to get Right Sound or I am looking for Right Sound without warring what characteristics the electricity would I have. This is not so simple question and until I had a chance to play with APS PurePower I was not able to look at this question from other, very obverse perspective.
What!!! To use a power generator not as juts power redemption unit but as actively sound shaping component? You bet!!!
In my view the APS PurePower is not a good power regenerator – it does a lot of wrong things objectively and I will be talking about them. The PurePower is rather an active element of playback system that actively impose specific sonic signature to playback’s presentation. In context of proper applications of this regenerator and the PurePower’s contributions is exceptionally radical and I would even say innovative. We are accustom that better power treatment devises take care better or worst about the electricity imperfection and then let audio components to care their duty. It is not how I see the APS unit works: the elimination of common power problems is I would say is just 30% of what I appreciate in APS devise. The PurePower does a few other things and those things are probably the most interesting in Sound that came from PurePower powered audio. I have seen some power treatment devises trying to do those “extra” things: Bybee filters, the multiwaving with PP and few other devises. None of those advances from my point of view were look in right direction. Come on then juts sound poorly and were able to satisfied only audio-teenagers with reference points of Jurassic Park habitants. I will be taking about those PurePower “extra things” in more details as well.
So, a claver reader would ask “Romy, why do you feel that PurePower not just produces better electricity? Why do you feel that PurePower is actively imposing specific sonic behavior to electronics and why you consider that APS unit as some kind Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid that has ability of condense and catalyze specific aspects of playback’s sound?”
Good question. I have no definitive answer but some of “things” that I hear in PurePower sonic influence I never heard form audio that runs from good electricity (happened a few times per year). Those “things” are not something exclusive but they rather are expected and predictable “things” still, those “things” are overplayed atop of “good electricity sound” – very intriguing and in a way invocative result.
Considering some other important factors about which I will be talking later I feel that the APS PurePower devise is an active, sound shaping, invasive element of playback and this generator should be treated this way. Does PurePower address problems with bad electricity? Well, probably it does, at least I am not bothered with them anymore. Still, to look at the PurePower regenerators ONLY as electricity curing devise is, I feel, to have too primitive and too nearsighted view.
Will be continue….
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